By Minnesota Public Radio News

Four people died in vehicle-train collisions at Minnesota railroad crossings last year, the second lowest number of deaths since 1970, state transportation officials said Friday.

There were 32 total crashes last year with 19 reported injuries. An additional three people were killed in trespassing incidents, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Light rail crashes are not included in the numbers.

Fatalities have been declining since at least 1970, when there were 56 fatalities and 392 crashes, MnDOT noted. In 2014, nine people were killed and there were 48 crashes.

“The total number of crashes is far lower than 30 and 40 years ago, but it’s still too high,” Bill Gardner, director of the state’s Office of Freight and Commercial Vehicle Operations, said in a statement. “We must continue to work to make crossings safer and educate the public about the risks at crossings.”

Gov. Mark Dayton made rail crossing safety a priority last year. He has called on the railroads to pay more of the cost of safety improvements along the congested tracks used by oil trains.

Oil train traffic from North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields brought a spike in train traffic across Minnesota in recent years.

While that traffic has dropped along with oil prices, concerns about safety at Minnesota’s 4,030 public rail crossings remain.

“Part of the explanation is driver inattention. Drivers looking at their cellphones, texting, thinking about what’s going on this weekend,” said Tim Spencer, MnDOT’s manager of rail planning and development. “Nationally somewhere between a third and a half of crashes at grade crossings occur at signalized crossings.”

Spencer said 38 percent of Minnesota rail crossings now have warning signals.

MnDOT noted the drop in deaths in Minnesota bucks the national trend. In 2015, there were 1,780 vehicle-train crashes in the U.S., down slightly from 2014, but about the same from 2012 and 2013. There were 244 fatalities in 2015. An additional 511 people were killed in trespassing incidents, the department added.

 

— MPR News reporter Dan Gunderson contributed to this report.